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Transgender dolls will be accessible to Minnesota school children between the ages of four and 10 starting this fall as a result of a taxpayer-funded development program supported by Gov. Tim Walz, according to a report.
The MyGenderDolls, which were developed in part through the University of Minnesota’s Early Innovation Fund, will be for use by “clinicians and educators” starting this year, the New York Post first reported, citing the product’s website.
The dolls, according to the website, were “designed for gender diverse children ages 4–10.”
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The Washington Ave. bridge on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on April 2, 2022. ( )
They come with interchangeable accessories and removable and swappable genitalia to help children “realize all the different options that exist for who they can be — regardless of their body parts,” University of Minnesota postdoctoral fellow Ben Parchem, Ph.D., said in a now-deleted article in the University of Minnesota Foundation’s magazine.
The dolls began as a research program in the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, spearheaded by two members of the school’s faculty, Dianne Berg, PhD, and G. Nic Rider, PhD, both educators in the school’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health.
“It’s really important to address the belief, ‘I’m not a ‘real’ boy because I don’t have these private parts,’ versus, ‘I am a real boy, whatever my anatomy looks like,’” Berg told the Foundation’s magazine in the now-deleted article.
“It’s about helping children develop tools to cope with messages in society that could lead to shame,” she added.
Diane Berg, PhD and G. Nic Rider, PhD, LP, faculty members of the University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and co-creators of the MyGenderDolls (University of Minnesota’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health)
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“MyGender Dolls began as an idea of the Institute for Sexual and Gender Health psychologist, Rachel Becker-Warner, PsyD. NCGSH Co-Director, Dianne Berg, PhD, and Communications Specialist, Ashley Finch, have been hard at work developing the dolls to be used as a therapeutic tool for transgender and gender diverse children. The concept is similar to classic paper dolls; kids can select bodies, genitals, clothes, and other accessories as a way to visualize their anatomy and genders,” a now deleted 2024 summary of the project from the University of Minnesota’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health read.
The project is one of many pro-transgender state-funded efforts under Walz, according to the Post.
In 2023, the University of Minnesota’s Eli Coleman Institute for Sexual and Gender Health (ISGH) presented Walz with the Distinguished Sexual and Gender Health Champion Award “for his outstanding efforts in protecting sexual and reproductive health care (PRO Act, HF 1) and gender-affirming health care (Executive Order 23-03) in Minnesota,” the school wrote in its annual report in 2023.
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Of the three faculty members presenting him his award, one was Rider, a co-creator of MyGenderDolls.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz fields questions on Feb. 3, 2026, in St. Paul, Minnesota. Walz has been a champion of transgender ideology throughout his tenure as governor. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
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Digital contacted Walz’s office, MyGenderDolls, Rider, the University of Minnesota and the school’s Department of Family Medicine and Community Health for added comment.
